A Memory of Milton

I have a memory of Milton I’d like to share with the LionHeart family.

Most scale modelers have an airplane that is “theirs”, one that is special to them in some way. Mine is the Curtiss P-40E as used in the Pacific during the seminal years of 1942 and 1943, so I was ecstatic when Hasegawa introduced their 1/32nd Scale Warhawk to our hobby way back in 2008. I didn’t like any of the kit decals, however, and set off to find my own markings for the kit, a search that led me to George Preddy’s “TARHEEL” as flown by the 9th FS/49th FG out of Batchelor Field near Darwin during early 1942. The markings were deceptively simple (an important term, that), just the name on the nose and the number 85, all applied in white and in easy to duplicate fonts, which meant it was doable even with my limited skills. The model was duly built, decaled, and made ready for display when Disaster struck: “TARHEEL” had further markings I hadn’t noticed until after the model was completed!

It turned out that the real airplane had a partially red spinner as worn by all of the P-40s in the 49th’s Java Flight, a sub-unit comprised of flyers who had fought in and survived the disastrous ABDA campaign in that country, and it also carried nose art, a full-color Java Dragon on the right side of the cowling as displayed by all of the Java Flight aircraft. Things began to look pretty bleak for that model, markings-wise, but not for long.

Some of you may remember Rudy’s involvement in another retail establishment prior to helping create The Little Hobby Shop That Could. I was a regular in that other place almost every Saturday and frequently ran into Milton Bell, someone I knew but not well. He was there the Saturday after the discovery of my self-inflicted incomplete markings fiasco. I relayed my tale of woe to him and, if memory serves, he said something along the lines of “I can probably fix that for you”, and he gave me The Milton Grin while he was saying it. A couple of questions followed: “Do you have a decent picture of the nose art?”, and “Can you provide me with an idea of what size it was on the real airplane?”. The answers were a resounding yes, and the following weekend a transfer of information was made to him. I didn’t know Milton particularly well at the time so I settled back to wait for however long it would take him to do the decal, but that wait was a short one because I received a call a couple of days later giving me his home address and telling me my decals were ready! The model was saved, and Milton became one of my heroes in the process.

Years passed and that model had been sitting around gathering dust for quite some time. I’d finally determined that it was time to strip it and re-do it to standards more in keeping with my current abilities, and probably in different markings as well. That determination was made only a couple of days before Milton left us, and now there’s no way that P-40 will ever be changed! Cleaned up a bit, yes, but stripped and rebuilt—never!

That’s my tale of Milton and a plastic model airplane he helped me with, but the story defines so much more than that. It was, I learned, characteristic of him that he would help anyone whenever and however he could. Nobody ever had to ask him to do anything; he just did it. He was truly an amazing human being, a role model for us all. He was a giant in his own way, and in my world at least he’s leaving behind shoes that can never be filled.

Blue skies, Milton, and thanks for everything you so unselfishly did for us all!